/pol/ - Politically Incorrect

In occultism, there is the Hand of Glory, taken from the body of a man that was hanged and used for occult purposes.

>The Hand of Glory is the dried and pickled hand of a man who has been hanged, often specified as being the left (Latin: sinister) hand, or, if the man were hanged for murder, the hand that "did the deed."

>Old European beliefs attribute great powers to a Hand of Glory combined with a candle made from fat from the corpse of the same malefactor who died on the gallows. The candle so made, lighted, and placed (as if in a candlestick) in the Hand of Glory, would have rendered motionless all persons to whom it was presented. The process for preparing the hand and the candle are described in 18th century documents, with certain steps disputed due to difficulty in properly translating phrases from that era. The concept inspired short stories and poems in the 19th century.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand_of_Glory

>>4891171

The Hand of Glory is cool as hell. Some of the other stuff simply seems weird. The easiest way for me to understand it is to picture Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn talking about it and thinking it was cool to have some dead criminal's finger.

I also wonder if stuff like this was effective in keeping down black crime in the American south.

>>4890871

Not unusual at all, the punishment for troublesome negros in the West Indies was for them to be hung from a tree with a hook through the rib cage, until they were dead.

It was usually done after church on a Sunday afternoon, good wholesome entertainment for the whole family.

(pic related)

Here is something similar in Scotland.

>A calling card case made out of the skin of notorious Edinburgh “bodysnatcher” William Burke is on permanent display at The Cadies & Witchery Tours shop at 84 West Bow (Victoria Street).

>Burke and Hare committed a number of murders in Edinburgh in 1828, and then sold the corpses to Dr. Robert Knox at the Edinburgh Medical School for use in his dissection classes. After his public execution in January 1829, Burke was publicly dissected (like his victims) and grisly souvenirs were made from skin taken from various parts of his body.

http://www.greatergrassmarket.co.uk/blog/2014/01/a-grisly-souvenir-comes-to-the-grassmarket

One thing to keep in mind is that the Victorian era tended to be pretty morbid.

A really weird thing they used to do was take pictures of the recently deceased, and pose them as if they were alive.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2270169/Post-mortem-photography-Morbid-gallery-reveals-Victorians-took-photos-DEAD-relatives-posing-couches-beds-coffins.html

>>4890871

Well sometimes people in group do weird stuff especially in the old days because people didn't fear death or the dead the way we do today. But also remember that a lot of stuff is exaggerated by later generations as a way to paint the old times as bad and the contemporary times as progressive and enlightened. Like the Dark ages. They weren't as dark and backwards as people tend to believe. The reason we believe it is because people in the 16th century wanted to make their own times look better by smearing their history. This is a part of history that constantly repeats.

Take for example to popular myth that negroe babies were used as alligator bait in the 19th century. When people research the topic there is literally no substance to it but people will use the myth because it speaks to our preconcieved notion that the old days were dark and primitive and we are so much more enlightened now.